


Stepping stones to home

by chaos_is_welcome



Series: Coccham Chronicles [4]
Category: The Last Kingdom (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Drabble, F/M, International Kissing Day, Introspection, Kissing, TLKFFF2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-07
Updated: 2020-07-07
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:34:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25119976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaos_is_welcome/pseuds/chaos_is_welcome
Summary: The history of Finan and kissing.Of course, it ends with Eadith.For the TLKFFF Drabble-a-thon for international kissing day.Rated M for language/mature situations.
Relationships: Eadith/Finan (The Last Kingdom)
Series: Coccham Chronicles [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1807663
Comments: 16
Kudos: 42
Collections: The Last Kingdom Fanfic Fest





	Stepping stones to home

**Author's Note:**

> I swear I will never get tired of writing Finan. You guys will have to let me know if you get tired of reading essentially the same story from all these little angles. This was fun to write, I hope you enjoy! Un-betaed, un-edited, written in an afternoon.

Finan has kissed more than his fair share of women. The first was the fisherman’s daughter, Fairlaith, at the dock under a full moon, and it was only a chaste peck on the cheek. She was beautiful, with a smile that was as radiant as the sun. If he could have picked a wife, back then as a young and stupid boy, it would have been her. The next woman he kissed was one of his father’s household staff, and it just so happened that she was his first for other things, too. He was a noble lord after all, and needed to learn how to pleasure a woman. She taught him all the other places he could use his mouth to give pleasure, and Finan is not a vain man but he is happy to say she taught him well.

When he’d first made his new wife writhe under his mouth in Ui Neill and made her come with a moan, he thought maybe he had finally found a place that could feel like home. He learned the hard lesson that lust and love are not the same, and that just because you could make a woman come doesn’t mean she will love you. In all fairness though, Finan was relatively certain Maele loves no one but herself. Perhaps she had come to love his brother, for they were matched in both vanity and selfishness, but that was no longer his concern. His brother had fucked his wife, after all, and then married her after he’d sold Finan into slavery, but Finan has long ago let the meaningless shithole that was his life in Ireland go. He’s lived far more, felt far more, and done more that feels meaningful in England than he ever did in his homeland. In Ireland, he had been a foolish boy. By the oar and in chains, he had been stripped bare as a slave in Nordse. As a man with nothing, he finally found purpose. He served Uhtred and found a freedom in being an oathman that he had never experienced as a lord. He led Uhtred’s household troops, lived well and found he could sleep better at night than he ever had as a lord in Ireland.

Back to the women though. Finan had certainly kissed his fair share of women since coming to England. It always started with a smile, then a kiss and always ended with them sated and smiling and his cock happily used. It was never hard to find them--there was always a pretty young thing serving in the alehouse or the market, and if not there he was not beyond paying with silver for a woman who turned his head. He knew he was handsome, and the women liked both his scars and his humor. He hadn’t wanted more than a warm sheath for his cock though. He’d had a wife, and it hadn’t ended well. Commitment was not for him.

Yet he watched his Lord with the woman he loved, watched her belly grow round and seen the wonder in Uhtred’s eyes as he’d touched her stomach. Uhtred loved Gisela, and she loved him wildly in return. There was no mistaking it. Young Uhtred was born, and then Stiorra, and they each held Finan's finger with their little tiny hands, and stared back at him with familiar eyes and Finan was taken by the idea of family. He would have easily given his life for Uhtred's children, without a second thought. It just was not something he’d wanted for himself, because his own experience had been abysmal. His mother had died long before he could remember, his father had been an ambitious tyrant, and his brother had been equally ambitious and far more sinister. It had occurred to Finan, more than once, that the blood of his father and his brother was in him, and there was always the possibility that all that was ugly and rotten in that blood might fester there. So he lived vicariously through his Lord’s happy life, and sank his cock into whatever willing woman he could find. He made it a point of never spending more than a night or two with the same one, unless a long period had passed in between. As much as Uhtred had a reputation as a warlord, Finan had a reputation as a man who would bed a willing woman and walk away in the morning, and he was completely fine with that.

Until Eadith, that is. All fiery hair and sea eyes, he hadn't liked or trusted her at first. She had been humping Aethelred, and the King of Mercia was a turd and an abuser. He'd seen the first true glimmer of her spirit as she had given up her brother's crimes to save a child. She met his eyes, raised her chin, and stood bravely, like she was waiting for them to judge her, or use her. She's steel under the beauty, and he finds he is interested as he has not been in...well, ever. Then she single-handedly saves them all, when things were desperate and he'd thought for a few incredibly long moments that they were actually going to lose Sihtric, not in battle but hanging like game, upside down from a tree. In those moments, Finan had thought of Sihtric's faith and the hammer hanging around his friend's slack frame, and realized that death like this would send Sihtric to an eternity in his version of hell. Sure it would be cold instead of flaming, but Finan imagined the lack of appeal was similar no matter the weather. And then Eadith had screamed and lured away their captives and saved the day, and he had helped her wash the blood of the man she had killed to save them from her shaking hands, and he _wanted_. In less than a day, she puts herself in danger again, and Finan knows she goes for Aethelstan, the sad forlorn boy who is the hidden son of the king. And so the siege of Winchester begins, with Edward son of Alfred outside of the walls his father built, instead of within.

As Finan drops his sword and shield in the middle of a shield wall when he sees her laying in the void, dirty and motionless, he knows just kiss and a satisfying hump will not be enough with Eadith. She's been hurt and used and he wants nothing more than for her to feel wanted, cared for, like she belongs. And when she has all those things, he wants her to want him.

She comes to Coccham and he is ridiculously happy to spend his days with her. He tells her of Maele and Connell and how he ended up enslaved and she frowns at him and judges Maele for not fighting for him, and he wants. He leaves, going north to bring Uhtred and Aethelstan home, and suddenly he has a child to watch over and he realizes he wants it all--a home with a wife to help him raise this child who is learning about family for the first time. Not just any wife, but Eadith. He hasn't even kissed her, yet he can imagine an entire life before him. He waits, because she deserves to be the one to decide what she wants. She's never had that, and it makes him burn with rage and righteous anger that no one ever saw fit to protect her.

He almost loses her and his resolve waivers. He allows himself a kiss. It's just a kiss, but so much more than a kiss. It's a chink in armor that allows a sword to penetrate and he is on fire for her, and it's just a kiss, just his mouth on hers, her hands on his ruined back and his arms and in his hair and she is everything he didn't even know he wanted. He wants and wants and wants, and nearly forgets all the reasons he doesn’t take. But she groans in pain as he touches a sore spot, and he remembers how much she’s been taken, how much she’s been hurt, and he will not be another man who doesn’t do right by her. He’s never been noble, even when he was a lord, but this one thing he is going to do right. So he walks away and things become complicated, but sweet Jesus she is so worth it.

They are called to Winchester and as they sit at the Three Cranes, a pretty young thing slides in his lap and Sihtric laughs at him as he looks horrified and he makes excuses when she tries to kiss him, and Osferth is happy to take her off his hands and Sihtric, who has been happily married for years, just grins at him like a fool. There will be no more stolen kisses and warm, unknown thighs wrapped over his shoulders as he brings pleasure with his tongue, because just any woman won’t do anymore. When he thinks of a kiss, he imagines burying his hands in red hair he’s unbound himself, and when he thinks of thighs wrapped over his shoulders, they are pale and come with Eadith’s voice moaning his name.

She comes to him and she is finally ready, and that kiss in her house is the beginning of the rest of his life, the best part of his life. Everything else has just been stepping stones across a gulf that leads him to Eadith. His hands are in her hair and his tongue is in her mouth, and she is everything he imagined and more. Her taste is exquisite, his name as he makes her come even hotter than his dreams, and it is better because this is only the beginning. He is hers until his dying breath. He is a warrior, scarred by battles and whips and chains, but as he sinks into Eadith he understands the inspiration poets must feel, for some things warrant words worthy of them.

She bears his child, and there isn’t a single moment when he worries that their child will be anything less than good. She’s healed any worry about the blood that runs through his veins, and his daughter is as amazing as her mother. Aethelstan grows up in Coccham with love and friendship, and they teach him to fight and lead and just be a person that people will follow. They are so happy that Finan stays awake sometimes, thanking God for the road his life has taken and the people he holds dear. And every damn day he’s home, every day he comes back, Finan loses himself when his lips brush against Eadith’s. There’s more in their kiss than there was in every hump that came before. Eventually, they leave Coccham to ride with Aethelstan as he steps in as the son of King Edward, and they both know they will not return as he kisses her one last time in the doorway of the home they’ve shared. Somehow, though, they don't miss the house, because they are together, the four of them, and Uhtred and Sihtric and Sihtric's family, too. That is home, be it under a tree or in a Mercian field, at Droitwich or Aegelesburg or Eforwich or Dunholm or, finally, Beddanburg. He kisses her, and they live and it is more than enough.


End file.
